Wednesday, August 5, 2009

knowing when to quit, and moving on to other pursuits

So, I sort of unofficially decided to pull the plug on Embloggery the other day, and what a weight off my mind it is. I hadn't realized how sort of supremely it had taken over my mental energy, even though I wasn't updating very often anymore. Although I wasn't working on it, I was always thinking about it, how I should be working on it, how it felt like a chore, how I didn't have anything more to say.

I'd made this sort of pact with myself that I was going to do it for a year. But there was really no need to continue it; I could keep feeling annoyed with it and making uninspired posts until December, or I could just spare everyone including myself and get on with the business of thinking about things I really want to work on. Embloggery was, after all, a distraction between projects from the start!!

Anyway, services will be held for Embloggery at an as yet undisclosed location in or around Bloomington, Indiana sometime in late September.

I'm really excited to be moving on to new things. These days my tastes run to either the absolutely impermanent and/or purposefully destructive, or embellished functional items, particularly with a nerdy historical bent.

Pockets, pouches and hands-free forms of carrying important items are consuming a lot of my mind right now. Like this. What do you think they were keeping in the little bitty pouches?

I'm super interested in these saccoccias (saccociae?) right now. It's worth reading that whole page, by the way, as well as looking at the images, because it talks a bit about the history of hidden pockets in women's clothing and has a pattern which is, you know, awesome.

I guess I should quit being surprised that people always think I'm in the SCA.

5 comments:

Do you think the hipsters there would be receptive to historical fanny packs?

just kidding .. kind of.

We want to visit! We were talking about coming in October, I guess Spires that in the Sunset Rise are playing at some art opening? Would like to coordinate something around then. We'll keep you posted!

In the verse "Lucy Locket lost her pocket..." it was an under-the-skirt pocket she lost. As a kid I was puzzled that anyone could lose a pocket then we started doing historical reenactment, and I fell in love with these. Utilitarian ones in the colonial era were often plain muslin, but marriageable gorls especially would decorate their pockets with elaborate embroidery, then sometimes pull them through the petticoat slits to the outside, the better to impress suitors with their mad needlework skilz.